Can people be ticketed for driving too slowly?

Slow driving is encouraged in the snow, but driving slower than the traffic flow end with a ticket from the State Patrol. (Robin Utrecht/Getty Images)

This question was first posted April 24, 2009, but came up recently after reading a report from the Kitsap Sun.

The newspaper’s police blotter mentioned a 26-year-old man arrested on state Route 305 for possession of drug paraphernalia and cited for having expired license tabs and failing to provide proof of insurance.

The suspect was having trouble forming complete sentences and had red, droopy eyes. His tongue was green and the front of sweatshirt was covered with green leafy fragments that appeared to be marijuana, the newspaper reported. How was first noticed? Driving about 10 miles under the posted speed limit.

The moral of the story: Don’t drive too slowly on a freeway or highway, and allegedly eating marijuana won’t get you out of a tough situation with the cops.

Q: I was driving on the freeway when I came up really fast on a car in the middle lane. I had plenty of time to pass on the left but realized the car was going approximately 45 mph or slower.

How much slower than the speed limit can you go without moving into the break-down lane or turning on your hazard lights?

A: There are different answers for different scenarios, police say.

“In King County there are no minimum speed limits posted on any of the state highways,” State Patrol trooper Dan McDonald said.

Drivers cannot be ticketed specifically for driving too slowly unless there are minimum speed limit signs, he said. But drivers going too slowly can be cited for other violations – and the type of violation depends on speed in specific circumstances.

For example, if someone is driving 40 to 45 mph on the right lane of the freeway and not holding up traffic, he said they likely won’t be ticketed. But if a driver is going that slow on in the left passing lane, they can be cited for failing to stay right except to pass, which is a $124 ticket.

“Unless road conditions warrant slower speeds, if a motorist is traveling below the maximum speed limit they shall travel in the far right lane,” McDonald said. “There are exceptions to this law, such as allowing traffic to merge from onramps and passing stationary emergency vehicles that are on the right shoulder.

(1) No person shall drive a motor vehicle at such a slow speed as to impede the normal and reasonable movement of traffic except when reduced speed is necessary for safe operation or in compliance with law: PROVIDED, That a person following a vehicle driving at less than the legal maximum speed and desiring to pass such vehicle may exceed the speed limit, subject to the provisions of RCW 46.61.120 on highways having only one lane of traffic in each direction, at only such a speed and for only such a distance as is necessary to complete the pass with a reasonable margin of safety.

(2) Whenever the secretary of transportation or local authorities within their respective jurisdictions determine on the basis of an engineering and traffic investigation that slow speeds on any part of a highway unreasonably impede the normal movement of traffic, the secretary or such local authority may determine and declare a minimum speed limit thereat which shall be effective when appropriate signs giving notice thereof are erected. No person shall drive a vehicle slower than such minimum speed limit except when necessary for safe operation or in compliance with law.

“Therefore, if there is a minimum speed limit posted then motorists must not drive below that posted minimum limit unless necessary for safe operation,” he said.

If slower motorists are traveling in the center lanes or the far left lane of a multiple-lane highway, they could be stopped for impeding the flow of traffic or violating the keep-right-except-to-pass law “if the elements to those laws are present,” McDonald said.